Minnestoans are the snobbiest people on the face of the earth. The average Orono soccer mom resents the fact that she has to cheer for this team, which has no championship history to boast to the neighbors about, no fabled outdoor stadium to hold a Jell-O picnic outside of, and gets no extra ladlefuls of adoration from that fat Chris Berman. The second Brett Favre joined the Vikings, Minnesotans were overjoyed, because they got to co-opt a little bit of Packers glory for themselves. It was horrifying. And that’s true any time a former Packer joins Vikings: Darren Sharper, Ryan Longwell, etc. We got one, yay! It’s like having a mother who loves some rich kid down the street more than her own flesh and blood.
And it’s not like the franchise is moribund: This is the seventh-winningest team in NFL history. But if Erik Erikkssonsen can shun the Vikings in favor of some Edina high school preseason hockey game, he will. There’s no Vikings Nation out there. When I lived in New York, there was one Vikings bar in town called Ship of Fools. Two dozen people sat in the back room to watch them. The rest of the bar contained THREE HUNDRED Steelers fans. We travel about as well as Ball State. We are not diehard. We are diesoft.

what? Frank Costello is retiring and we'll never hear from him again?! WHAAAAT?

gotcha!

76-year-old film icon Jack Nicholson has no plans to appear in films again after a career spanning five decades.

“Jack has — without fanfare — retired,” a well-placed Hollywood film insider confirmed to Radar. “There is a simple reason behind his decision — it’s memory loss. Quite frankly, at 76, Jack has memory issues and can no longer remember the lines being asked of him.

The soccer mom reference in the Deadspin article above reminded me of this article that I read yesterday (by the way, it's not real).

Quote:

In an extreme effort to stamp out unfriendly competition, a youth soccer group in Midlake, Ontario, is eliminating soccer balls from their games and forcing kids to pretend they’re kicking a ball around.

"Unfortunately, when you put an overemphasis on competition, individual skill development regresses, and that’s what’s happened in our game for so long,” said Alex Chiet, technical director of the soccer group.

I like Deadspin, but disagree. The Vikings are the only sports team that the state roots for, despite what hockey fans might think.

Do Vikings' fans "travel well"? I'd argue the issue is that MN don't move out of the state, and that's why Vikings' bars are not so packed.....It was an entertaining piece though._________________Wins are a team stat, not a QB stat

A couple minor complaints I have:
-I've never seen the temperatures for Vikings' home games above single digits. This includes August preseason games.
-The London game isn't played in London. It's played in the Metrodome.
-The Cowboys' home uniforms aren't white, they're the blue ones.